[tharian]

There is this thought that is embedded in most drivers regarding passing a flooded section, which is, go slow and the car will breakdown, so the faster you go over a flooded section without bothering about the splash, and you are safe from breaking down. At the end, it is selfishness.
I have noticed this every time I come across a flooded section that there are people who just accelerate hard and create a big wave or splash that two wheelers loose balance and fall into the dirty water.

This driver was stupid to do what he did and it is only common sense at the end of the day that water will splash when driven over it like that and no one likes to be drenched from the the dirty water on the road.
The two wheeler riders aggravation is also that they are safe in the car from the elements and the two wheelers are not and on top of that they do this.

[revvharder]

I observe such type of stupidity almost on regular basis for example:

1. Drivers avoiding small puddles or patches of wet soil as if they are walking and their shoes would get wet or their feet would get dirty and these idiots then force the pedestrians or two wheeler riders to go through these.

2. SUV's stopping for the smallest undulation on the road where i wouldn't even slow down my Wagonr.

It is almost comical and sometimes even i am on the receiving end and there is always this urge to ask them to carry their cars over their shoulders and let others move on but i just don't really wanna ruin my mood and just laugh off but what the driver in the video did, would feel intentional to any road user beside him and i hope he has learnt his lesson that his car wouldn't sink if he drives slowly through the water logged area.

[Kickdown]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Whose fault?

Excerpts from Team BHPs "How to drive safely in the rains: Tips & guidelines;
Be twice as considerate to two-wheelers!.
Please don’t splash water on pedestrians."

Definitely the guy driving the car is at fault. He had no business accelerating like that when he knew there was a puddle of water and two wheelers around him. Not apologizing after that was even worse. What the two wheeler guy did later was also stupid.

[UD17]

Originally Posted by NomadSK

The guy in the car, shouldn’t have accelerated,

I Think he want to overtake the Seltos, which overtook him few seconds back. He sneaked past the Seltos in tight gap and accelerated hard to show him something (god knows) while being indifferent to the presence of two wheelers..

[DetectiveMiles]

Saw a mionr rage incident with two wheeler and a car last week, but it didn't get escalated. Scooter driver looked really agitated at something. The junction is a place where vehicles come from all directions, with blind spots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_mWy6zOvg0

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Whose fault?

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=1siXnhFA7DA

Nobody for the water splashing. Two wheeler rider for his behavior and actions. Literally, there are patches of road where one is not aware of how deep the water is. Just a layer of water on road what we have during rains can turn, seemingly not much, 6 inches of water accumulation at some patch. Any car when driven over this will splash some amount of water. If we take into account the traffic specially two wheelers who can dive into any direction, its becomes difficult for a car drive to focus on such 6-8 inch deep water pockets that are accumulated on road. There is nothing much a car driver can do. These small patches of water accumulation collect such amount of water in no time, and in my city atleast, are near the road divider where one would be driving the car. What bewilders me is construction of such roads as this water accumulation later on results into potholes. Why there is no accountability on govt. part in such cases ?

Forget city roads, even in Rajastan enroute to Udaipur from Shamlaji, I have observed such patches of water near road divider and trucks end up splashing huge amounts of water, blinding car driver.

I have faced some wrath earlier for such situations, best is to ignore them. That's the only way out. People are having very short tempered nature and immediately they want what they believe is justice which usually is causing harm to others. The intent to do harm is actually dangerous. Forget any sort of even heated arguments, its straightaway do some harm mentality and wont stop there till their anger subsides.

For monsoons, I usually switch to longer routes where roads are better than what shorter route alternatives have to offer.

[MyLife_MyCar]

Below are my personal thoughts, which may be right or wrong for the masses:

Originally Posted by revvharder

I observe such type of stupidity almost on regular basis for example:

2. SUV's stopping for the smallest undulation on the road where i wouldn't even slow down my Wagonr.

Irrespective of the car, I do not like the jerkiness when passing over rough patches/undulations on the roads, however small or big. I'll always slow down to make it smooth for me, my passengers and my car. We have some instances here in TBPH itself where small potholes/bumps have caused damage to tyres/alloys.

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Nobody for the water splashing.

Any amount of accumulated water on road will cause it to splash even when driving over it with low speeds. It is moral responsibility of driver to slow down to the extent possible.
There are so many things that car driver could have accounted for:

• Accumulated water, slow down!
• Traffic avoiding that patch, slow down!
• Clear path, but traffic around it and water on the road, slow down!!

[Yieldway17]

I recently was in a road rage incident and the incident has been bothering me since then that I wanted to pen it down here.

I was on my two wheeler coming back from work at around 10:30pm when the roads are generally busy but not crowded. I was getting down from a flyover ramp to join a major road and hence was keeping to the right lane as the left lane lands before shops where people park their cars and bikes.

As the traffic was minimal, I was doing 45-50kmph and had my right indicator on to merge to the major road below. Note that the flyover has 30kmph speed limit and it was slightly drizzling.

As I was almost at the merge point seeing to my right for vehicles on the major road, I noticed a very fast car approaching down from the flyover ramp on my mirrors. They were soon on my back as the flyover ramp wall ended, and as I was about to merge to the 2nd left most lane of the road below, the car started blaring horn so much that I had to abandon my merge for my safety and move left to the lane near to the parked vehicles to let them go ahead on my right.

At the same time, he tried to overtake me on the left in the narrow gap which with me moving left as well, he had to abandon again. I do agree that for a fast moving car, a two wheeler not being decisive on the front can be irritating as I had been there on the driver seat. But that indecision is being created by the driver themselves here instead of letting me who is in the front to merge in 2 seconds.

Here is where I also made a mistake. I got irritated by them so much that I turned back and asked why with my hand. Now this had incensed them so much that they overtook me and stopped the car blocking me.

Two guys immediately jumped out of the car and started abusing me. One of them who was not the driver was extremely angry and said he could kill me right there and hit one of my side mirrors with such a force that it fell off (it was slightly shaky before). They kept asking why I moved left when I had my right indicator on. I replied to them that them being on so much speed and blaring their horn made me abandon my right move. The guy who hit the mirror just wanted to hit me and the other guy was somewhat reasonable blocking him.

I got down, picked my mirror, put it in my bag and just started leaving which they didn't want me to do and wanted me to park to the side and fight with them. I just left finding a gap thinking just about getting safe to home instead of engaging with these idiots and engaging in a brawl and getting beaten up.

This had been in my mind since then and been repeatedly thinking about how I could have avoided it and also why some of the people are loaded with powder keg just waiting for a spark to blow up. All this rage over basically an inconvenience of 5 seconds max and them not following any rules of the road.

I'm kind of an active person on the road who is somewhat assertive and do ask the other drivers or riders why they are doing what they are doing when they do stupid things on the road. Now I just want to shut up and never ever engage with anyone for anything regardless of what's happening. I'm just posting this here as a form of venting and ruminating as the incident has been stuck in my head and just want to clear it out.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by Yieldway17

Now I just want to shut up and never ever engage with anyone for anything regardless of what's happening. I'm just posting this here as a form of venting and ruminating as the incident has been stuck in my head and just want to clear it out.

Welcome to the Mature side of life.

You did the absolutely right thing by not engaging with that idiot.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Whose fault?

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=1siXnhFA7DA

Clearly the fault of the four wheeler. He has basically acted callously. And has not had the common sense and basic humility and humanity to realise the situation, accept his fault and apologise.

It has simply snowballed into a pure ego issue on his part. And in this case his is the bigger vehicle which is shielded from the elements whereas the smaller vehicle is open to the elements. Some basic sensitivity has to be there on the four wheeler driver’s side.

Is it any wonder then, when people behave this way, that usually in these circumstances, most bystanders and other people take sides with the smaller vehicle?

Of course, also considering the daily pressures most people undergo in our country it also becomes in some cases an opportunity to ‘vent’ - ‘have-nots’ vs ‘haves’ etc.

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Nobody for the water splashing. Two wheeler rider for his behavior and actions. Literally, there are patches of road where one is not aware of how deep the water is.

I have the opposite view. At the outset, not condoning the violent actions of the two wheeler bloke but here goes:

1. It is very evident that there is flowing water ahead, a narrow road and two wheelers on the side. Its absolutely 101 common sense to crawl through such sections. Instead, he’s sped up!! The water was very visible because traffic had come to a crawl at that point and he was at crawling speeds a little before he went through that flowing water.

2. Even after realising what he’s done, I think he could have stopped voluntarily and apologised and said it happened inadvertently. I think if you do that, chances are despite the anger the other person will likely calm down.

3. Instead what he’s done is (a) ignore him; (b) from what it looks like in the video, he’s deliberately rear ended him - twice!! He had enough chance to stop behind him if not the first time then definitely the second time.

If you ask me, the four wheeler has taken the first violent action simply by rear ending him, even if you ignore the water splashing.

[100Kmphormore]

What the car guy got was inevitable, senior citizen or not. If splashing him wasn’t enough and trying to escape, he rear ends him! He would have been beaten up badly if he had his windows down. The question is not about ego but the massive waste of time for the 2 wheeler guy after the splash just for a couple of seconds for the car to be slow. Imagine going to a function or office and splashed by a car, when you can see the pool so clearly ahead! Judging by the wife’s tone in Kannada he seems to be a past master in inciting arguments and trying to escape them later. Lodge a police complaint? Against whom? I was laughing at that man’s sentence.
This flyover is barely a couple of kms away from my home and such incidents though not daily are common. Young bikers like me in riding gear have a gala time with these sort of entitled older drivers who splash us in the rainy season and have the gall to question us as to why are we riding in the rain, until the pandemic eased some of these senior citizen drivers away from the road. I now usually wear a raincoat and ride slow even if it’s a little deeper blocking their way so these morons will atleast stop. Being splashed has 2 effects - being blinded momentarily might cause another accident or a fall due to a sudden hidden pothole/loss of traction due to hydroplaning.

[virajvroom]

I am not an expert. However, a few things I have learned as a car driver. Always try de-escalation, as most here agree with. That will resolve most issues. Usually, gundas and political people have other debatable pressing issues to focus on. A sorry or a similar gesture works like a charm.

Scenario 1: Words at play. Nothing much happens here. Just abuses and some brake checks or cutting off lanes, and the miscreant flees. These types of ppl are usually as terrified as you are but hurt about not getting much attention and never a threat. Just an embarrassment to themselves and society.

Scenario 2: Damage/Intent to damage: The miscreant blocks you and makes gestures intending to harm you. The best thing is to stay in your car without any reaction. Half of the time, things switch to Scenario 1. The other half could be fatal; considering the situation, it's a boon to lock yourself in your vehicle. The miscreant will damage your vehicle, giving you a legal chance for self-defense. However,

A) if the miscreant chooses just to damage your car's surface once and stays there doing nothing or leaves without uttering a word, you cannot claim your right to self-defense. Not reacting is, again, the key to avoiding giving the miscreant a chance to file a case/counter-case against you, claiming you retaliated in revenge, and putting you in the same dock as him/her. So, not reacting gives a good chance for you to take legal recourse later.

B) Now, if the miscreant/s are not stopping and continuously damaging your vehicle (more than once), you can just do whatever you deem fit at that moment to defend yourself. The best thing is still to drive to the nearest police station or any govt. establishment or any privately secured area if that window exists. The latter two will put you on the trespasser's list but save you from harm for a minor fine. One of my friends drove into a military cantonment and almost got shot, or what he seems to believe/exaggerate. Luckily, he stopped right after crossing the gates and shouted for help. The miscreants on two-wheelers just fled from outside the gates. Driving back to your residence is not a good idea for obvious reasons unless, of course, you have a strong security agency guarding.

Scenario 3: Guns and Rocket launchers: I've never faced this, so I don't know what my reaction would be. Guess it's Jai Ganesha, then....but I will still give point B) a try before saying goodbye.

When you are on Bike, the whole equation changes. The above points would just be theories. It's all about either escaping alive or being confident enough to retaliate. It's hard to define 'Self-Defence' legally when you are not in an enclosure. Even you touching the other person could be treated as retaliation in revenge. The witnesses will be key then. And if it is a woman. Just stay as far as possible and mind your language twice, thrice! Or maybe have your female family member with you during an argument. No offense, but that is how the law works. Gender equality doesn't apply here.

[Meph1st0]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Whose fault?

Definitely the car driver's fault. He should have driven slowly and shown some consideration for his fellow travelers. The car driver's argument was that if he drives slowly, water will enter the silencer and cause problems. He should have accepted his mistake and apologised for what he had done. In such a situation, a simple apology can do wonders.

The two-wheeler rider risked his and the pillion's life for the sake of his ego. This is the general behaviour observed in such situations and all logic goes for a toss. Causing damage to the car is not acceptable but this could be due to the rear ending caused by the car driver.

[Naetik30]

I would never ever recommend stopping to apologize. Even in cases of clear fault, do not stop to apologize. Own safety first before anything else. In India there is no guarantee that stopping and apologizing would help in any way. And worse it could result in harm to self. Even in the above case, two mirrors lost. Much better than what might happen if you step out.

In case of serious injury to third party. Escape from the location. Go to a police station nearby or where you have some influence and then give a statement to the police. Do not expect sane voices from a mob ever.

Even when having to make split second decisions between your own safety or other road users safety. Chose yourself AT ALL TIMES.

There were two incidents that taught me this -

1. When I was a young boy (less than 10), a relative of mine was married to an Indian army soldier. They had 2 kids and the soldier decided to take voluntary retirement and bought a lorry. He was driving the lorry in Andhra Pradesh (dont recollect the location) and hit a two wheeler rider on a bridge. Not sure whose fault it was. He stopped to help the rider. A mob came after him and he was beaten to death. Leaving behind a young widow and 2 kids under 4 years old.

2. I had just graduated and moved to Bangalore for a job. For the first year SETC Tamilnadu was the sole means of getting back home for the weekend (for financial reasons). No online reservations with SETC. Not sure if they do it now. I booked 14 days in advance for the next trip. The counter lady recommended the seat right behind the driver was available. I said NO and said I want left side seat as that would be safe. (Those days the Coimbatore to Bangalore did not have road dividers). Cannot ever forget her reply. In the case of an accident the bus driver would save himself and so the seat behind him would be the best.